Server 2008 or 2012

[slavano]

Hello all,

 

I am looking for a little advice. I have a Xeon E5410 on a Intel s5000vsa with 32gb of ecc memory. I plan on using this as a home server and I am wondering if I should stay with windows server 2008 (currently on the server) or if I should install a copy of windows server 2012. 2012 will add no extra cost for me. My biggest concern is will 2012 be to heavy for the server to run or will it run nicer then server 2008 (similar to windows 8 being easier to run then windows 7). Any thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Guest Michelle68]

2012 will run fine but I would do the install as a "Server Core" without the gui. This helps keep the OS very light weight. 

[Blake]

Hello all,

 

I am looking for a little advice. I have a Xeon E5410 on a Intel s5000vsa with 32gb of ecc memory. I plan on using this as a home server and I am wondering if I should stay with windows server 2008 (currently on the server) or if I should install a copy of windows server 2012. 2012 will add no extra cost for me. My biggest concern is will 2012 be to heavy for the server to run or will it run nicer then server 2008 (similar to windows 8 being easier to run then windows 7). Any thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance!

2012 (if you can get R2 even better) is a better all round server platform. With RSAT tools a core install is just as easy to manage, but if you scared of power-shell (you will need it if you need to TS an issue locally on the server) you can look at the minimal server interface. 2012 will run fine with the full gui, minimum requirements are 1.4ghz 64bit processor + 512mb of RAM, you'll be fine. I have 2012 running on an AMD N45L + 16GB RAM and it is very snappy (admittedly it is a file server only).

 

another good thing about 2012, you can swap between full gui, minimal and core installs with one line of code and a reboot (quiet linux fanbois):

Get-WindowsFeature -Name *GUI* | Install-WindowsFeature #Will install the feature, can you guess how to go from GUI to core?

If you can hold out ~12months you can get your hands on server 2016, but I can't really say anything about that.

[slavano]

2012 (if you can get R2 even better) is a better all round server platform. With RSAT tools a core install is just as easy to manage, but if you scared of power-shell (you will need it if you need to TS an issue locally on the server) you can look at the minimal server interface. 2012 will run fine with the full gui, minimum requirements are 1.4ghz 64bit processor + 512mb of RAM, you'll be fine. I have 2012 running on an AMD N45L + 16GB RAM and it is very snappy (admittedly it is a file server only).

 

another good thing about 2012, you can swap between full gui, minimal and core installs with one line of code and a reboot (quiet linux fanbois):

Get-WindowsFeature -Name *GUI* | Install-WindowsFeature #Will install the feature, can you guess how to go from GUI to core?

If you can hold out ~12months you can get your hands on server 2016, but I can't really say anything about that.

 

At this point 2012 is at no cost for me so even if I do go with 2016, ill have something nice for now! And thanks a lot guys. I am relatively new to the server world. Any advise is greatly appreciated. (I am quite techie so no patronizing please:))